Jennifer Aniston is attached to star in DUMPLIN’, a music-driven comedy in the vein of Pitch Perfect that Disney recently dropped, allowing producer Michael Costigan to set it up as an independent film, the Tracking Board has learned.

Anne Fletcher (The Proposal) has come on to direct from a script by Kristin Hahn, who adapted the popular YA novel by Julie Murphy and is producing alongside Costigan’s COTA Films. Production is slated to start this summer.

Aniston will play the mother of a plus-sized teen who decides to enter a local beauty pageant as a form of protest, but winds up inspiring a rag-tag group of contestants to join her. In the process, she gains newfound respect for her former pageant queen mother, who in turn comes to admire her daughter for who she really is.

CAA and UTA are jointly representing domestic rights, while IMR is handling international sales.

Aniston recently starred in Office Christmas Party and will soon be seen in The Yellow Birds. She’s represented by CAA and Lighthouse Management & Media.

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